Desperately Seeking Chocolate, with its wonderful handmade dessert sauces, is the brainchild of Cathy Wylie and Helen Sullivan-Thompson. They became friends when their children where in kindergarten together. Both have full-time jobs and have been in the dessert sauce business three years.
The popular sauces are caramel crème, mint fudge, hot fudge and ginger habañero, which has a slight hot pepper bite. Cathy experimented and developed the three chocolate sauce recipes, which are made from a blend of premium dark chocolates and quality fresh ingredients. The caramel crème is from the turtle recipe of Cathy’s mom, Madeline. 
A batch takes a couple of hours to make and is yields 72 jars.
Fourteen stores carry the specialty sauces. Locally, look for Desperately Seeking Chocolate dessert sauces at New Leaf Market in Boulder Creek, Ben Lomond Market, Scotts Valley Market, and Mint, a wine bar and gift shop at 4652 Scotts Valley Drive.
Wylie works as assistant director at Habitat for Humanity, and with her husband George has three sons, Nick, Paul and Sam. Her sons help load and unload boxes, Sam also helps labeling jars, and George delivers to stores over the hill.
Sullivan-Thompson is an assistant in the personnel department at the San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District. With her husband, Sid, she has an 18-year-old daughter, Alanna, who has made deliveries and is starting at Cabrillo College in the fall. Sid has helped with marketing strategy.
The pair’s families and coworkers have supported them as tasters, giving feedback on the flavors. Their children keep a few teachers supplied with their favorite flavors.
And, the partners say, a new "top-secret" flavor is being tested and could be out for the holiday season this year.
Brian Isles has retired from teaching special education for 30 years. He has led personal growth groups for men over the years and is starting a group called Just Retired for Men, with the goal of being happy.
In the past year, Brian has made more than 300 bird houses. Some will be for sale at the Scotts Valley Art and Wine Festival, Aug. 9 and 10 at Skypark.
Brian’s three sons are grown. Todd owns Pacific Coast Concrete Pumping and, with his wife, Sabina, has two kids: Tiana, 12, and Nico, 2. Chris is a commercial airline pilot for Shuttle America in Indiana and Matt just moved his shop, So Fresh Hip Hop Clothing, to a larger location at 912 Cedar Street in Santa Cruz. To talk to Brian Isles about Just Retired for Men, call 336-3354.
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